• Reducing the number of recruit visits: This is the one with the most teeth, theoretically. The NCAA reduced the Wildcats’ number of potential visits from their self-imposed limit of eight and 12 (the max) to six and six over the next two years. I am not deep enough into recruiting to know what impact losing two additional visits this year will do to the program, but the combined impact with losing half their visits the following year could put the Wildcats in a hole with recruits and negatively affect their program for the next few years. Still, it just means that Sean Miller and his recruiting team will have to use those visits more selectively.
• Taking away one additional scholarship: Not a huge deal because this would probably be spent on some second- or third-tier recruit or even a former walk-on as a token of appreciation for carrying everyone’s bags and water for three years.
• Moving back the probation: All this means is that the Wildcats will have to be on their best behavior for an extra five months. The Wildcats will not have to deal with a TV or post-season ban, so it is essentially the NCAA taking a meaningless punitive shot by saying that the punishment starts when they say it starts.
• Vacating the Wildcats’ 2007-08 season: Although the NCAA did not say who the two players were, a little detective work suggests that they are Jamelle Horne and Zane Johnson as they were the only Wildcats on that team who played in the 2006 Cactus Classic. While Horne has had a solid if unspectacular three years at Arizona (Johnson transferred to Hawaii after his sophomore year), we will always remember him for his pair of bone-headed decisions as a sophomore against UAB and USC. As Dana O’Neil noted, the new trend towards vacating wins is essentially meaningless unless it takes away a title (looking at you, Pete Carroll) or moves a team/coach down the all-time rankings. This does neither. In fact, in an ironic twist, this gives Olson the opportunity to stab his long-time assistant turned interim successor Kevin O’Neill in the back one more time as the wins are not taken away from Olson, but instead from the acting head coach at the time (O’Neill) even though it was Olson who committed the wrongdoing. As an added bonus (h/t Dauster) we get to ask the following question: if two teams that never existed played a game, did it really happen?

O'Neill gets the shaft again

What does all this mean? Essentially a whole lot of nothing (or hot air, if you prefer). The Wildcats lose one more scholarship, a few more recruiting visits, are on double-secret probation for a few more months, and have to put another asterisk behind their 25 consecutive NCAA tournament appearances. Given the relatively minor nature of the crime it seems appropriate that the NCAA handed down a relatively minor punishment.

Part of the Learning Curve for Pastner

Last week Pastner was in Minneapolis on a recruiting trip when he became aware that Golden Gopher forward/headache Trevor Mbakwe was playing in a summer pro-am nearby.  Memphis is recruiting Mbakwe after he was forced to sit out all of 2009-10 at Minnesota due to an assault charge he is facing from his freshman season at Miami-Dade CC, so Pastner went to the gym to watch him play.  Since Mbakwe is still officially on scholarship at Minnesota (he is asking for a release) and the pro-am was an uncertified event, Pastner was in violation of NCAA rules in watching him perform.  In a story from the Pioneer Press on Wednesday, Tubby Smith became aware of this violation, and, still hoping to get Mbakwe to play for him next year, threw young Pastner (who has a reputation for aggresive recruiting)  under the bus. 

“I think they probably misunderstood what the rules were,” Smith said Tuesday. “It might have been miscommunication or something. I don’t know.”

Memphis responded today that the athletic department has already contacted Conference USA and the NCAA about the violation, and that Pastner was completely guiltless in this matter.  The Tiger storyline is that a compliance officer in the UM athletic department approved Pastner’s appearance at the event, and that she had misinterpreted the rules in this case.  Nicole Green was named by Memphis as the party at fault, and color us skeptical, but if a person with several years of experience in compliance makes that kind of mistake, then she is either: a) incompetent, or b) the fall gal.  Either way, Memphis and Josh Pastner probably should look into shoring up that compliance department because the Tigers cannot afford to lose out on talents like Mbakwe over silly violations like this. 

Was it worth it?

Here is how USC stuck it to itself in the middle of last season:

• They ditched one scholarship from last year and this upcoming season,
• They reduced by one the number of coaches who could hit the road recruiting,
• Took 20 days off their allowed recruiting time this year,
• Vacated (a concept we hate) any wins in which O.J. Mayo played,
• Gave back just over $200,000 they earned by being in the 2008 NCAA Tournament,
• Let three kids out of their LOIs for the next season, and
• Took a year off from both the Pac-10 and NCAA Tournaments.

More on that last one in a bit.  Here’s what the NCAA tacked on as far as basketball penalties today:

• Four years of probation. It starts today, and it ends in exactly 1,461 days on June 9, 2014.  In other words, the NCAA  acknowledges you were bad.  It added some penalties.  But if you screw up any time in the next four years, they’re really going to be ticked.
• Vacate all those post-season wins from the 2007-2008 season. USC won their first game in the Pac-10 tourney that year over Arizona State, then lost to UCLA.  Then, as a 6-seed, they lost to #11 Kansas State in the NCAA Tournament first round.  Total penalty there?  One win. Crippling.
• Hold the Mayo.  USC must “disassociate” itself from O.J. Mayo and the guy who provided illegal benefits to Mayo, Rodney Guillory.  USC can’t take any donated money from him, can’t have him helping with recruiting, can’t have him do anything on behalf of the school.  That was probably happening anyway.  We can’t imagine that USC would have him out trumpeting the virtues of USC basketball.
• If you’re not part of the team, get out. “Non-university personnel” can’t fly on charters, donate money, help with camps, go to practices, or hang out in the locker room during/after games.

Again, the last penalty listed there is interesting, because it will be tricky to adhere to, just as it will be tricky to enforce.  There will probably be lots of communication between USC Compliance (stop laughing) and the NCAA over the next several years about that.  All it’s really saying is that they have to quarantine themselves from “non-USC people.”  But the definition of a “USC person” is probably pretty wide-ranging.

The only real sanction that affects them going forward is the four years of probation.  There’s no TV ban, there’s no extended loss of scholarships, there’s no further post-season ban.  True, that bit about disassociating themselves from O.J. Mayo might prove costly if he pulls a Rajon Rondo-like delayed transformation and becomes one of the top guards in the NBA, but USC basketball should be very pleased.  As long as they keep their noses clean for the next four years, there’ll be no problems.

USC basketball fans owe Gerrity and his fellow seniors from last year a debt.

When USC unleashed the self-imposed sanctions on its basketball program last January, most people (including us) thought they were a little harsh, especially the post-season ban for a team that would almost certainly have made the NCAA Tournament.  Soon after began the talk from many experts that the athletic department was sacrificing the basketball program to save football, a totally logical way of thinking that was further engendered by the fact that, even though USC football was having one of their “worst” seasons in recent years, they still didn’t want to put any post-season bans on that prized possession known as the football team.  Heaven forbid.

Looking at what happened to USC football today, it’s obvious the NCAA didn’t fall for this straw man.  We can assume now that the self-imposed sanctions were evidently deemed by the NCAA as almost totally sufficient for basketball, and that the punishments were kept completely separate.  This basketball punishment now endorsed and finalized by the NCAA isn’t exactly a slap on the wrist, but it’s not the NCAA Pimp Hand of Death, either, and it’s much, much closer to the former. USC basketball was never going to save USC football — but it may have helped save USC basketball.

Forgotten in all of this are three gentlemen who should be revered by any and all fans of USC basketball: Mike Gerrity, Marcus Johnson, and Dwight Lewis.  They were the three seniors who lost their last opportunity to play in the NCAA Tournament because of the self-imposed postseason ban last season.  Gerrity, who had just transferred in as part of his three-college career and performed beautifully for the basketball team, never got to play in an NCAA Tournament — all because the athletic department was seemingly hoping to reduce the eventual sanctions on the football side.  We’re not saying they should have their jerseys retired, or anything, but USC basketball supporters should find a way to remember those fellows for a long, long time.

A final point: we’ve never met Pete Carroll.  Our relationship with him is that he’s a college football coach and we’re college basketball bloggers.  In other words, there is no relationship, other than he’s famous and we know who he is.  He may be a prince of a man, and most people seem to think so, given all of the stories written and specials aired about him explaining what a great guy he is.  We’re in no position to confirm or refute any of that.  What we can say, though, is that the people who want to jump on folks like John Calipari or Kelvin Sampson or any player or coach who ever left a program right before it got hit with penalties from the NCAA now need to unleash that same glower at and think those same thoughts about Pete Carroll, and that’s not going to be easy for the majority of college sports fans.

In its appeal, the university made two arguments as grounds for reversal of the financial penalty: (1) there was insufficient evidence to find that the university or the student-athlete knew, or had reason to know, that he would become ineligible; and (2) even if the evidence was sufficient to make such a finding, the Committee on Infractions erred by not specifically concluding that the university or the student-athlete knew, or had reason to know, that he would become ineligible.  The Infractions Appeals Committee, however, disagreed and upheld the financial penalty. In its report, the Infractions Appeals Committee stated that a letter from the testing agency to the student-athlete “not only made the student-athlete aware that his eligibility was in serious jeopardy, but that he would be declared ineligible if he did not respond to the letter.”

Rose One Week After Notification From ETS About His Test Score

Memphis AD RC Johnson responded with the comment that he is disappointed with the findings, but generally took the high road and pointed toward a bright future for Tiger athletics. 

The NCAA is essentially standing behind their ostrich argument here.  They’re holding Rose responsible for failing to respond to letters of inquiry about his test score, and they’re holding the school responsible for failure to properly investigate the situation surrounding Rose’s test scores before he played.  Even though the NCAA Clearinghouse signed off on Rose to participate in athletics in 2007-08, they obviously believe that Memphis didn’t do enough to vet the situation through their own investigation.  But since the NCAA cannot prove that fact, they’re using Rose’s willful ignorance of letters in March and April 2008 from ETS (which Memphis does not receive) to show Rose’s bad faith while folding Memphis’ culpability into it through a failure to act. 

Certainly there is plenty of circumstantial evidence of tomfoolery with respect to Rose’s test (allegations of high school grade changes; the test-taking venue change to Detroit; the handwriting analysis), but nothing so apparent that the NCAA could hang its lily-white hat on.  Our interpretation of their final ruling looks something like this:

We [the NCAA and Memphis] both know that the player cheated on this test given the increase in his test score; but you [Memphis] rubber-stamped his score based on what he told you.  Had you properly reviewed this player’s circumstances, you would have sensed something was rotten in Denmark.  Even though we can’t prove that Rose cheated on his test in Detroit, we can prove that he ignored letters questioning him about it, so short of evidence to the contrary, we have no other option than to retroactively make him ineligible.

It’s a convoluted argument and not a very well-designed one, but it appears to be where the NCAA has landed on the matter.  Memphis will have to pay back the money earned from the NCAA Tournament’s five wins in 2008 and remove all 38 wins from its record, which has no real effect other than the removal of a banner celebrating that team in the rafters of FedEx Forum. 

All of This is Great, But Will It Count?

The big elephant-in-the-room question remains, though, which is whether the vacation of these wins belies a willingness of Kentucky coach John Calipari to pull the ostrich maneuver himself when it comes to recruiting and managing his players.  Nothing has been specifically targeted at him by the NCAA or the University of Memphis, but the twin coincidences of using ineligible players due to improper benefits and/or suspect test scores (both here and at UMass) is cause for alarm.  It’s certainly one thing if you’re carrying around illicit cash payments yourself or setting up fraudulent exams for players (see: the Harricks), but it’s almost as troubling if you look the other way while such things are going on, perhaps not fully aware of the details but completely certain of the processes to secure desired outcomes.  It’s a little analagous to a mob boss who has his henchmen do the dirty work without causing the Don to get his hands soiled, or a crooked politician always looking for plausible deniability for his backroom dealings.  We’re not accusing Calipari of specific wrongdoing – far from it, in fact — but to ignore these two situations especially in light of a continued association with a power broker-turned-agent like World Wide Wes is absolutely worth watching.  As wonderful it is to watch a player like John Wall perform in this year’s NCAA Tournament, we can’t help but wonder whether his tenure as a collegian will even count two to three years from now.  It’s unfortunate to have to think that way, but it’s a very logical byproduct of the prior situations involving this coach at this time. 

Mississippi State University basketball student-athlete Renardo Sidney must sit out the remainder of the current season and 30 percent of the 2010-11 season, according to a decision announced Friday by the NCAA academic and membership affairs staff.  In addition, Sidney must repay $11,800 in benefits received from preferential treatment. The sanction for 2010-11 is estimated to be nine games.

Considering the allegations against the Sidney family — that they were essentially living rent-free for a couple of years in high-end properties in Los Angeles — this seems like a relative slap on the wrist.  What it really means, though, is that the NCAA couldn’t prove any (or much) 0f it.  What they could prove, however, was that Sidney and his father lied about a recruiting trip that they took to LA in 2006 to visit schools.  Their answers of “I don’t know” didn’t pass muster with the factfinders, and therefore the “unethical conduct” charge that the NCAA threw at him stuck.  The penalty for that transgression has mostly been repaid: Sidney must sit out a full season at Mississippi State.  MSU’s final home game is tomorrow, and the Bulldogs will have at most a  handful of games ahead in the postseason.  Put simply, this year is already shot for Sidney, so the timing of the penalty coming now doesn’t really feel like that much of a loss.

Will We Ever Actually See Sidney in This Uniform?

The second piece of the punishment handed down — a nine game suspendion next season and $11,800 in repaid benefits (based on extra Reebok gear, unsanctioned workouts and a family credit line) – seems light as well.  The nine games, sure.  But only $12k in bennies?  Either the NCAA needs to hire better private investigators or the Sidney family (and their attorney Donald Jackson) are experts in deception and obfuscation.   One would think that a family on the take for a shoe company as powerful as Reebok and a player broker as influential as Sonny Vaccaro would hit that amount in a good weekend.  After all, the risk/reward on a player like Sidney is calculated in multiples of seven figures, not five. 

Speaking of which, the spectre now hanging over the Bulldog program is what will Sidney decide to do now?  Their attorney says that they already plan on appealing, but that’s unlikely to get them anywhere better than they are now.  This summer Sidney will be draft-eligible as a player one year removed from high school, but the year away from the game has not helped his NBA draft stock.  At one time considered the top player in the Class of 2009 (ahead of John Wall, Derrick Favors and DeMarcus Cousins), he is now listed in the mid- to late-second round on two top NBA Draft sites.  Some of that drop is attributable to his play during his senior year where many scouts felt he was unfocused and coasting, but undoubtedly many are now wondering how the one-year layoff from competitive basketball has affected a player already prone to loafing. 

The NBA will certainly find space on a roster for a 6’10, 270-lb beast with a soft touch around the rim, even if on a flier.  But staying at Mississippi State another year is another interesting option.  Current MSU patrolman and college basketball’s all-time leading shot blocker, Jarvis Varnado, will finish his career this spring along with starting guard Barry Stewart, but the Bulldogs should return the core of a relatively young bubble team this season.  Should Sidney choose to return, he could slide right into Varnado’s warm post spot with the hope that the roster continues to develop (including 7’1 project John Riek). 

The big daddy among the sanctions that USC is self-imposing is that there will be  no postseason this year at all — no Pac-10 Tournament, no NCAA.  It has also vacated all 21 of their wins from the 2007-08 Season of Mayo, and will give back the dough they “earned” from their first-round loss to Kansas State in the NCAA Tournament that year.

Look at that last paragraph again, and behold the inherent logical absurdity.  We’ll return the tournament cash and vacate the wins from 2007-08…but we won’t go to the post-season this year.  In other words, what happened was in the past, and as part of the mea culpa, we’re punishing people involved in our program today.

In any situation, isn’t the penalizing of a current squad for violations which occurred in the past a bit of an arbitrary sanction?  As college basketball fans, haven’t we had enough of how ridiculous that is?  Then again, that’s the precedent that the NCAA has set, right?  You can’t go back in time, other than to remove the wins and give back the money.  You can’t punish the people alleged to be directly involved (in this case, Mayo, Guillory, and Floyd), even though everyone thinks that you should have that right and the means to do so, if you weren’t at fault yourself.  A long time ago, the NCAA set the precedent of punishing current teams for the mistakes of past teams (or members thereof) because…well, what else could they do?  Who else could they punish?  And so that’s the way it’s always been.

So, in the next couple of days and definitely in early March, you’ll hear and read a lot about what a shame it is that this year’s USC basketball team is getting extremely screwed on this deal.  And that’s completely correct.  We echo those sentiments.  Because O.J. Mayo wanted to play in a major media market two years ago and (allegedly) had some guy help make that happen, folks like Mike Gerrity, Nikola Vucevic, and Alex Stephenson don’t get to play in an NCAA Tournament this year.  Gerrity, a senior, will never get the chance as a result of this.  Oh, yeah.  That makes sense.  But people have been saying this for years.  Everyone knows how unfair it is to punish members of current-day teams for crimes committed by earlier teams’ players who are long gone, yet the NCAA hasn’t bothered to come up with another way to sanction programs for their wrongdoings.  As observed in so many areas of life, here we have a silly way of thinking and a stupid method of doing something being perpetuated over time, and the reason it’s allowed to continue is…because that’s the way it’s always been.  Where’s the creativity?

This WOULD have been a good RPI booster for Gerrity and co., but...

In a perfect college basketball world, a few things would happen.  First, the NCAA would stop punishing current-day teams for old infractions and do something like, say, increase the monetary penalty for such unlawful acts.  Instead of giving back the money earned from an NCAA appearance, maybe the penalty should be that a school pays back TEN TIMES that amount.  Maybe a program should pay back $20,000 for every game they won while they were doing whatever they were doing.  Maybe a program could be suspended for one season AFTER the current freshman class has graduated.  OK, I know these are impossible, unrealistic sanctions; I’m just spitballing, here.  But they’re better than punishing innocent people for others’ actions.  And this isn’t even our job, you know, to come up with these things.

Another thing we’d see in a perfect hoops world is — if it’s found that only Mayo, Floyd, and this Guillory guy were in on this and the rest of the USC Athletic Department were unaware — that USC would  be able to go after the wrongdoers.  If Mayo and Floyd did what they’re accused of, USC should, with assistance from the NCAA, be able to go to the NBA and come up with a suitable punishment for those two, whether it’s garnishment  of wages or season suspensions or whatever.  The NBA shouldn’t be a haven for players and coaches who have screwed over colleges.  This will never happen, of course, because the NBA (and the players’ union) will always protect their most precious commodity — the players — no matter what they’ve done in the past.

High school kids and their families also need to ask some tough questions when they invite coaches into their homes or when they’re on campus visits.  Coaches should be up front about this stuff anyway, but they also have incentive to fudge the truth when it comes to the state of their program.  These recruits need to consider a program’s “shadiness factor” when evaluating it, and should ask direct questions like, “What are the chances that, after I move away from home, run all those miles, lift all those weights, sacrifice study time, go through all those practices and road trips, and sweat and bleed every day for this team, I’m going to wake up one day and be told that one of the biggest goals I’ve set has just been eliminated as an option because of something somebody did several years ago?”  We’re not saying that the current group of USC players are getting what they deserve because they knew what they were getting into.  We’re wondering how many of them actually knew what they were getting into, and considered this as a possibility when they signed on to play there.

For now, though, the USC players will suffer the consequences, and Mayo and Floyd will continue to get paid.  And USC will be allowed to, along with some smaller recruiting penalties, bury itself for a season…not because it necessarily represents justice, but because it’s what the NCAA would have done.

]]> http://rushthecourt.net/2010/01/04/usc-sticks-it-to-itself/feed/ 3 http://rushthecourt.net/2009/12/03/usf-hoops-under-investigation-anthony-crater-suspended/ http://rushthecourt.net/2009/12/03/usf-hoops-under-investigation-anthony-crater-suspended/#comments Thu, 03 Dec 2009 23:46:40 +0000 rtmsf http://rushthecourt.net/?p=13453 As reported by AOL Fanhouse (is just Fanhouse now?), South Florida’s basketball program is under NCAA investigation based on multiple accusations of impropriety that the same outlet reported two weeks ago.  The allegations mostly derive from excessive transportation, tickets to NBA games and ‘open’ practices during dead periods held under strength coach Terrelle Woody’s purview.  Woody came to USF as part of a package deal with the well-traveled and much-maligned Gus Gilchrist, whom we still haven’t forgiven around these parts for using the tragic Virginia Tech shootings as an excuse to bail from his prep commitment to that school.  Comedy springs from tragedy, though, and how funny would it be if Gilchrist’s handler ended up with his star player suspended and his employer put on probation?  Of course that’s unlikely, because as often happens in these situations, at the first sign of trouble the traveling circus of Woody/Gilchrist will bolt for greener pastures leaving the angry townspeople of Tampa holding the bag.   

In other encouraging news out of Stan Heath’s program, transfer guard Anthony Crater, who was set to begin play on December 13 against Central Michigan, has reportedly failed his second drug test at the school and will have to sit out 4-6 additional games, depending on how USF interprets their internal substance abuse policy.  The article also notes that Crater failed a drug test while a freshman at Ohio State last year, which means that the talented but troubled point guard who has also been arrested for possession (later dropped) and suspected of involvement in theft of $8000 of property while in Tampa (but never charged) has failed three drug tests in just over a calendar year.  Heath is on the record stating after Crater’s arrest for possession last January that players such as he only get so many chances: “You get chance No. 1, you get chance No. 2; at some point in time you’ve got to make adjustments that the program is bigger than what you are.”

Where does the adjustment/program size threshold start again, Coach Heath?  Because, by our count, this is chance #5. 

1. Failed drug test at Ohio State (allegedly)
2. Failed drug test at USF (definitely)
3. Arrest for marijuana possession (definitely)
4. Primary suspect in theft of $8000 of property, with an on-record admission of an earlier theft (definitely)
5. Failed second drug test at USF (definitely)

Of course, we shouldn’t be surprised.  Heath also allowed another basketball vagabond/troublemaker, Mike Mercer, back onto the team this season even after he was arrested twice last year for public consumption and marijuana possession.  The reason?  He graduated in August.  Well that… and the fact that he provides defense and depth at the guard position for his 7-1 Bulls. 

• How does Corey Maggette not get Duke into hot water after the fact, but Derrick Rose does for Memphis?
• John Wall and Ryan Kelly, anyone?
• Eddie Sutton took down Kentucky over payoffs but Kelvin Sampson is banned for five years over phone calls?
• Why are some legal doctrines (strict liability) selectively used in some situations but not in others?
• Can anyone, anyone at all, explain Reggie Bush/USC?

There are many others, but those are a few off the top of the dome.  Why do things seem so inconsistent?  How does the NCAA decide to investigate, and when they do so, what are the criteria they use to make their findings?  Do they use generally agreed upon principles of auditing, quasi-legal doctrine, administrative law, or something else they make up as they go along?  How are penalties assessed and what are the mitigating factors that they consider in making those decisions?  Is every single case a uniquely-judged “case-by-case” situation, making it all but impossible to draw generalizations about how the NCAA rules enforcement folks will act in a given situation?  Or is that ultimately the point — to make it so confusing and inconsistent that any school can get in serious trouble for nearly anything (or the perception that you can)?  Now that we think about it, we already go through this seemingly every year in terms of what the NCAA Selection Committee wants to see on NCAA Tournament bubble teams’ resumes — it shouldn’t surprise us that things out of this shop often seem wildly arbitrary and inconsistent.

So here’s the point of this post.  Memphis announced today that it had learned what the NCAA’s response to its appeal in the Derrick Rose SAT scandal was, but according to some bylaw borrowed straight from the Soviet playbook, the school is not allowed to make the response public nor can it/will it (?) discuss these findings.  Memphis is undoubtedly doing some grandstanding here, but it doesn’t change the absurdity of the NCAA’s rule keeping their logic and reasoning secret.  So we now sit in Act III of theater of the absurd while we wait for someone at Memphis to leak the information contained within the document (which can only be viewed on a secret, read-only website administered by the NCAA — sadly, this is not a joke), or for an enterprising news organization to force the NCAA to release the document under open records laws in Tennessee (as recently occurred in a Florida State cheating scandal).

Does the NCAA not understand that operating in this manner in no way engenders public trust and faith in the fairness and equitable nature of the system?  Do they not see that, regardless of the strength of their argument on the merits, John Q. Fan reads this and can only conclude that the NCAA is hiding the ball so as to get its way in the end?  Are they too dense to realize that a simple and consistent application of rules and policies are the first step toward removing much of the thinly-veiled cynicism that those still following big-time college sports have for it?

RTC Applauds RC Johnson's Audacity

It would be hilarious if it weren’t so pathetic.  Kudos go to Memphis Athletic Director RC Johnson for telling the world that the NCAA has responded to his appeal, but sorry, we’re not allowed to tell you what they said or the logic they use for agreeing/disagreeing with it.  That’s incredibly rich, and it gets exactly the right message across.  Memphis is going to pay for this anyway — the NCAA has already cornered itself on the strict liability argument — but at least they’ll go down lobbing shots across the bow at the absurdity of it all.

Nolan Smith, Duke.  Smith will make the extremely thin Duke backcourt downright transparent for two games as he will sit for playing in an unsanctioned summer league in the Washington, DC, area over the summer.  During tonight’s 84-48 win against Findlay, Smith did not play in the first half so his teammates could adjust to playing without him.  He will miss the season opener next week against UNC-Greensboro and Duke’s second game against Coastal Carolina.  Karmic equilibrium for this?

Trevor Mbakwe, Royce White & Devron Bostick, Minnesota.  Tubby Smith announced indefinite suspensions for White & Bostick today, joining teammate Trevor Mbakwe who was already on suspension for allegations involving an attack on a woman in Miami last April.  White, another member of a stellar recruiting class along with Mbakwe, is a 6’8 power forward who is accused of stealing merchandise from a Macy’s at the Mall of America and pushing a security officer down to the ground. Bostick, a senior forward who averaged 4/2 in eleven minutes per game last season, is being suspended for an undisclosed violation of team rules.  All in all, what was looking to be a very promising season in Minnesota is not off to a good start.  Smith was ambiguous about how long White & Bostick would be out of action, but Mbakwe will not be cleared (if at all) until after his court date in Miami on Dec. 14.

Stefan Welsh, Arkansas.  Stefan Welsh also sat out his team’s first exhibition game last night against Dillard (not Al, we hope).  John Pelphrey indicated that Welsh, a starter for 14 games last season who averaged 12/3 in just under thirty minutes per game, may be out for the rest of the semester for undisclosed reasons.  This suspension comes in front of the anticipated set of suspensions that Pelphrey will soon mete out based on rape allegations in September where as many as five scholarship players could be suspended for several games.  That assumes, of course, that the special prosecutor now assigned to the case will not decide to bring charges against the players allegedly involved.  Yikes.  It could be a really rough winter in Fayetteville.

Renardo Sidney, Mississippi State.  We don’t have a scoop here, as Sidney is still currently not cleared to play this season.  But as we discussed last week, and as Jeff Goodman reported today, the Sidney family believes that they have satisfied the evidentiary threshold that the NCAA required, and think that Renardo will be cleared as soon as this week.  There’s no question that Sidney’s eligibility would change the complexion of the SEC and make MSU a darkhorse to reach the Final Four in April, but we hope that their statements aren’t borne of hubris, rather of confidence.

According to Lexington television station WLEX-18, the NCAA has cleared Kentucky’s insanely talented point guard (and pretty good dancer) John Wall to play, provided that a couple of conditions are met — namely, the repayment of travel expenses and the sitting of Wall for two games.  The games are UK’s exhibition this Monday night against Campbellsville and the November 13th regular season opener against Morehead State.  This all stems from Wall having played AAU basketball under coach Brian Clifton, who, even though he was not acting as one, was a certified agent at the time.  The expenses, totalling $787.58, are evidently related to costs in making unofficial visits to various schools.

We sort of figured that even if anything came from this at all that it wouldn’t be much, and that’s pretty much what has happened.  No word on whether or not the eligibility of any other player from that AAU squad has been adjusted.  In the report from Lex18.com, to his credit, Wall’s first offering of gratitude went to his mother, for whom Wall claims the wait for a final ruling has been particularly difficult; head coach John Calipari added, “John Wall is a great kid who always tries to do the right thing and his mother is a great lady.  I’m just happy this is behind us.”

ESPN.com is reporting that issues have been raised regarding the recruitment and signing of presumptive freshman superstar John Wall.  Evidently, SEC commissioner Mike Slive has confirmed to ESPN that the eligibility questions are centered around Wall’s having played AAU ball for coach Brian Clifton, who was once a certified agent.  By NCAA rule, playing for an agent implies that you accepted illegal benefits from them.  It is being investigated how much — if anything at all — Wall would be responsible for.  Things are a little vague at this point, but Wall’s eligibility for any or all games would be affected by the amount of benefits he is deemed to have accepted, which he would have to repay.  It should be noted that Mr. Clifton claims that, though he admits he was at one time a licensed and certified agent, he forfeited his agent’s license in August of 2008 to commit all of his energies to his AAU teams. 

In the early going, there are two questions at the forefront of this:  first, if you play for someone, is it to be assumed that you accepted illegal benefits from them?  Second, if you technically have an agent’s license but aren’t acting as an agent, are your players violating NCAA rules?  Given the NCAA’s, er, interesting way of interpreting the rules, it will be interesting to see where, if anywhere, this goes.

More on this as events unfold.

From the Sporting News…

In early July, [Assistant Director of Basketball Operations/Manager] Bilal Batley visited the UK practice gym to speak with a player regarding an academic matter…While there, [Batley] was seen gathering rebounds for one of the players.  The university determined it should be turned into the NCAA as a secondary violation.

Batley held the same post at Calipari’s Memphis program last year before accompanying him to Kentucky.  Before that he was a graduate manager at Indiana for a season.  The Kentucky job didn’t last long, though.  A few days ago, it was announced that Batley was no longer on the UK staff, evidently choosing to leave to go back to Houston because of an illness in his family.

Though no connection has so far been discovered or reported, a person cannot be faulted for asking the question regarding the possibility of a connection between Batley’s departure and what really does look like a minor violation.  It would be normal to ask that question if such an occurrence happened at ANY program.  When John Calipari is your head coach, though, it’s going to draw even more of a critical eye.  We know, nothing’s ever been actually pinned on him, but when you’re the only coach ever to have Final Fours vacated at the two schools you coached and when you associate with people named World Wide Wes, you can’t be surprised when you’re looked at a tad more closely. 

Did Calipari hear about the possibility of some kind of (even miniscule) violation perpetrated by this man, and order him out in the spirit of running a totally clean and pristine program at UK?  Or, if a bigger investigation is forthcoming, did the coaches convene and decide to oust Batley preemptively because some other things might be discovered?  Is there more news to follow from Lexington?  Nobody can say right now, and the possibilities mentioned above are total speculation and conjecture on the part of this blogger, as of right now.  There’s always the chance that — and you might want to hold onto something, here — the violation really is just a tiny thing that UK is playing it very safe (and understandably so) by reporting, and Batley really is going back to Houston for the aforementioned family illness.  If that is indeed the case, of course we hope everything turns out well for the Batley family.

I have one question, though.  Given what’s happened, the “minor-ness” of the violation becomes more compelling.  I mean, the guy grabbed a few rebounds for somebody while on his way to take care of something else; the NCAA is one bizarre organization when it comes to evaluating crimes and doling out punishment, but it would have to be utterly insane to attach any penalty to that.  People take leaves-of-absence from jobs all the time when family members get sick, and they’re often allowed to come back.  In fact, as most of you know, depending on who the family member is, your job is protected by law if you choose to take leave.  Jobs at programs like Kentucky don’t just grow on trees.  Maybe I’m misinformed on the whole thing, but a job like “Assistant Director of Basketball Operations/Manager” sounds like one that another person in the department could handle for a short time while Batley tends to the family issues, so that he could return when those matters are resolved (happily, we hope).  No matter whose decision it was, why is Batley now totally unassociated with the program?  Why would he seemingly remove himself or let himself be removed from such a plum position at a Leviathan program like Kentucky so quickly and so soon after taking the job in the first place, and over so minor an incident?

Who knows — right now, it looks like there’s no fire associated with this smoke.  But we’re going to stay tuned.

Speaking of Coach Cal (and UK fans will remind us that correlation isn’t causation), he now becomes the first head coach in the history of college basketball to have had NCAA-mandated removals of Final Four appearances at different schools.  You should recall that Calipari’s only other F4 appearance in 1996 was later vacated because of Marcus Camby’s prodigious affinity for cashmoney and bling.  This latest Derrick Rose situation makes Calipari programs two-for-two, and, interestingly, the Memphis Tiger program two-for-three on removed Final Four appearances.  Keep polishing that 1973 runner-up trophy, Tigers, it’ll be a while until the next one.

Here’s the list of F4 teams whose appearance was later vacated by the NCAA that 2007-08 Memphis joins.

• Ohio St. (1999) – Jim O’Brien
• Minnesota (1997) – Clem Haskins
• UMass (1996) – John Calipari
• Michigan (1992 & 1993) – Steve Fisher
• Memphis (1985) – Dana Kirk
• UCLA (1980) – Larry Brown
• Villanova (1971) – Jack Kraft
• St. Joseph’s (1961) – Jack Ramsay

Do you guys believe in karma?  This list is populated by four national runners-up and five other semifinalists, but the NCAA has to date still managed to avoid vacating a national championship team.  And without question, the Rose/Calipari Memphis team was the closest finalist on this list to actually cutting down the nets.  Maybe there was a little more magic to the Mario Miracle dagger than we understood at the time?